At Aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath.
It was twenty odd years since Cannibal had won the big race for him; and this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. True he had a horse running, down on the card as Four-Pound-the-Second, brown gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years there had never been a National in which a Putnam horse had not played a part. And rumour had it that Four-Pound was a rum un even for Putnam's.
As Mat entered the Paddock, he was looking round him—for his missing daughter, observers said.
Jaggers and Ikey Aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple of the Boys to track him from a respectful distance.
The old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a character, drew others toward him. He lilted heavily across the Paddock with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of tittering nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words.
"Don't 'ave nothin' to do wi' me. That's my adwice to you. I'm Old Mat. You oughter know that by this. No, I ain't goin' to walk round the course this year. As I says, the course don't change, but I does. If the course wants me to see it, it must walk round me. I've done the proper thing be the course this sixty year. Now it's the course's turn. Good morning, Mr. Jaggers. Yes, I see him, and he see me—only he look the other way. Pretty little thing, ain't he? Reminds me of that foreign chap went on the religious ramp in Italy. I seen his picture at Mr. Haggard's. Savierollher, wasn't it? They burnt him; and I don't blame 'em. He was Jaggers's father I 'ave 'eard. Only you mustn't 'and it on, else you might get me into trouble."
He crossed the course, looked at the water opposite the Grand Stand, and examined the first fence lugubriously.
"Time was I could ha' hop it off one foot," he said. "Something's 'appened. Must 'ave."
Then he returned to the Paddock, passing a bookie with uplifted hand of protest.
"Get away from me, Satan," he said. "Don't tempt an old man what's never fell yet."